Born of Blood and Ash

CHAPTER TWO

I woke on a hard, damp surface to a humming sound and a scent much like leather being ta

The white mist.

The darkness.

Ash.

I jerked upright, and my eyes flew open to a void of complete darkness.

“Ash!” I shouted, wincing as my voice echoed, mingling with what no longer sounded like humming but moans resembling a haunting chorus of hungry spirits.

A shiver tiptoed down my spine, causing tiny bumps to flood my skin, and that was all I felt. I pressed my palm to my chest, feeling the softness of Ash’s linen shirt.

“Oh, damn,” I whispered. There was no buzz of eather. No underlying thread of power just under my flesh.

I had to be dreaming.

Except…

Except the damp, cold stone beneath me felt too real, and that stench was so thick and rich I could practically taste it.

Suddenly, I remembered what I’d sensed before the darkness came. Something ancient.

My stomach churned, and I shifted onto my knees. Where was Ash? Panic knotted in my chest as I tried to make sense of what was happening. My throat constricted, making it even more difficult to breathe. I saw absolutely nothing around me as I started pushing to my feet. Just pitch-blackness.

Two pinpricks of silver light appeared. I halted in a crouch, my heart racing. The twin spheres seemed to double in size. Another set flickered into existence, and then a third, each growing as the one before them had. My lips parted, and I stared at the lights. I…I didn’t think they were orbs.

They looked like eyes glowing with eather.

I slowly straightened, my already pounding heart speeding up. My fingers tingled with how fast the blood pumped through me. I may not be able to feel the essence inside me or that unca

The lights vanished.

A heartbeat passed. Other than the moaning, there was only silence. I took a step forward. A rush of charged air stopped me. Golden embers sparked in multiple places, igniting all around me. Flames erupted, casting a shining light onto the iron sconces. My gaze instinctively tracked the glow as it spread across dull, gray stone walls in some sort of cavern, bearing markings I’d seen in the Shadow Temples and on the Pillars of Asphodel—circles with vertical lines through them. The skin behind my left ear tickled. My Primal intuition kicked in then, and I continued following the light. Those marks were the symbol of Death. Of true Death—

I wasn’t alone.

Every muscle tensed as my body flashed hot and then cold. Three figures sat before me on horseback, their heads bowed and cloaked, bodies hidden in robes of white that rippled. Three horses that were nothing but bones and tendons were also covered by pale shrouds.

I’d seen them before. At the Pillars. I remembered their names. I could even hear Nektas speaking them now.

Polemus. Peinea. Loimus.

War. Pestilence. Hunger.

They were the riders of the end of everything, only summonable by the true Primal of Life.

Every instinct I possessed, both the old and the new, screamed at me to run because these beings had never been mortal or god. They were primordial. Not Ancients, but created by them. That was why they felt like them.

But an i

The rider in the middle moved an arm, reaching inside the folds of its cloak. It withdrew a sword with a dull ivory hilt and a blade the color of blood.

“Prove yourself,” a voice rasped through the air, rattling like old, dry bones.

My eyes widened when the rider turned the sword, holding it toward me, hilt first. I had a feeling this was Polemus. War.

Having no idea what the rider meant, I didn’t dare move to take the sword. “W-where is Ash?”

Silence.

Maybe they didn’t know him by that name? Seemed unlikely, but I cleared my throat anyway. “Where is Nyktos?”

“The Primal of Death is safe,” the rider replied, its voice causing my skin to prickle. “Prove yourself.”

“I want to see him.”

“Prove yourself.”

Chest thudding, I hopscotched between fear and anger. “I want to see him,” I repeated. “Now.”

“You must prove yourself, Primal.”

The one to the left of the middle spoke, its voice brittle and aged. Peinea, I thought. Pestilence. “Prove yourself worthy.”

“Prove myself worthy?” I stiffened even further, belly-flopping right into anger. “Of what and why?”

Words scratched their way from the third rider, who had to be Loimus. Hunger. “Prove yourself worthy of the crown and bearing the weight of Life.”

“Yeah…” I sca

“Souls sentenced to the pits,” Polemus answered.

My jaw went slack as the rider’s words repeated in my head. The pits? That had to mean… “I’m in the Abyss?”

“Prove yourself,” Polemus stated for what seemed like the hundredth time.

My hands curled into fists. “Look, I almost died, and that was after being held captive by an insane Primal. And now I’ve been taken into the Abyss against my will. So, thank you for that new trauma. I have no idea if my husband is safe or in the process of burning down the realm to find me—a realm I am supposed to lead, despite barely being able to finish a completed thought. And all I want is one nice night with my—” A horse whi

“Prove yourself,” Loimus replied.

My head snapped in the rider’s direction. “I swear to the gods if one of you says prove yourself one more time, I will—”

Polemus threw the sword at me. Literally chucked it without even a heads-up.

Cursing, I lurched to the side just in the nick of time. The weapon flew past me. “What in the actual—?” I gaped when the sword froze inches from striking the wall and remained there, hovering as if suspended by invisible strings.

“You must prove yourself,” Polemus stated.

I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply. Immediately, I regretted doing the latter. The smell gagged me. Forcing my breathing to slow, I quickly thought over my options. I wasn’t idiotic enough to challenge the riders, not when I knew they were something created by the Ancients, and I couldn’t feel even a single bit of essence in me. And that earlier feeling? The intuition that warned me I would fail if I ran? It was still there, pressing down on me. I didn’t really understand it, but apparently, I needed to do something.

I quickly came to the reluctant understanding that if I didn’t do what they wanted, I would likely spend eternity here with the riders saying the same thing repeatedly.

Growling, I stalked toward the sword. The minute my flesh came into contact with the hilt, it warmed. I looked down, feeling the weight. It was almost as heavy as a broadsword. The weapon was some sort of crimson stone that reminded me of the sheer, vertical cliffs in the mountains of the Shadowlands.

My gaze shifted to the hilt. It didn’t seem to be made of any type of common material. If I didn’t know any better, I would’ve sworn it was made of bone. My lip curled in disgust. Yeah, it was best I not think about that.

“Fine,” I barked, facing the riders. “Let’s get this over with.”

Polemus held up his right hand. I tensed, expecting them to charge me, but that didn’t happen.

Flames roared, billowing toward the ceiling. Crimson light filled the markings etched into the stone. I took a step back, and the carvings all along the cavern suddenly appeared as if they were soaked in glowing blood.

“What…what’s going on?” I asked.

There was no answer. Dust fell from the ceiling in a fine shower, drawing my gaze upward. A dark red glow filled the fissures there, the light becoming so radiant that it stung my eyes. My vision blurred as the light seeped from the cracks, spilling into the space between the riders and me.

With wide eyes, I watched the light pulse and grow, expanding until it took shape before me, becoming solid. Terrifying.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I spat, and the golden flames calmed, casting dancing shadows across the cavern walls as I stared at the menacing green-and-blue-scaled creature looming over me.

I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.

The beast was massive, at least twice as tall as I was, and had the body of a draken. Powerful legs and sharp claws that could not only clearly slice through flesh as if it were nothing but tissue paper but were also part of paws large enough to encircle the entirety of my waist. Its chest and torso were broad and muscular. The tail was thick and spiked, but that was where the similarities between it and the draken ended.

The thing had multiple heads.

Three, to be exact.

And its eyes, all three sets of them, were a brilliant shade of glowing silver, glinting with eather.

Possibly as bad as the three heads was its smell. It was rank. A stench somewhere between that of a rotting corpse and brimstone.

“Prove yourself,” one of the riders ordered. “And slay the monster.”

They expected me to fight this thing with nothing more than a sword? No armor? Not even a pair of boots or pants? And on an empty stomach?

“I feel like I’m extremely underprepared for this,” I muttered, tensing.

Forked tongues hissing, the creature’s left and right heads swayed in unison while the center remained still. It extended its long limbs, dragging wickedly sharp claws across the stone floor.

Breathe in. Reality or not, years of training with Holland had taught me that the first thing to do was to silence the mind. Hold. I couldn’t think about Ash. What was happening outside the cavern, or what I faced after this—if I didn’t get eaten by this thing. Breathe out. I couldn’t even think about why this was happening. Hold. I had to shut it all down and focus only on the nightmare standing before me.

It wasn’t like do

A fighter.

A warrior.